Israel’s Prime Minister, MK Benjamin Netanyahu visited Rambam Health Care Campus on October 19, where he met with hospital management and toured the COVID-19 command center, which oversees the activities of the coronavirus departments in the Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital.

Rambam’s General Director Dr. Michael Halberthal presented the hospital’s COVID-19 activities to Prime Minister Netanyahu, explaining that Rambam’s success has been been achieved through,

• the complete mobilization of all hospital departments,
• extensive collaboration with civilian and military industries to find solutions for hospital challenges faced during the pandemic,
• generous assistance from Rambam supporters and donors,
• and the connection with the IDF medical corps, which opened two COVID-19 departments in the fortified underground hospital to treat civilians.

The Prime Minister toured the facility and was impressed by the technology and computer solutions used to deal with the complexity of COVID-19 medical treatment. He spoke by telephone and video with Yaakov Artzi, an IDF retiree from Netanya who has been hospitalized there for several days – who told him about dealing with the disease in general and the hospitalization at the underground facility at Rambam.

Photography courtesy of Rambam Health Care Campus, Koby Gideon GPO